The Associated Press called it “sizzling.” The New York Times said we “surged.”

It’s good news and I’m happy about it. I especially like the 4.0 percent increase in outputs, led by a 12.4 percent increase in the manufacturing of durable goods. It almost starts to look like green shoots in a gray economy.

But keep the cork in the bottles. The hours worked last quarter dropped by fully 5.0 percent. The productivity gain came from doing more work in fewer hours. In the durable goods sector, the hours worked dropped a full 7.2 percent. The increase in productivity is fundamentally about people working harder.

And people aren’t getting paid for their hard work. Real hourly compensation rose only 0.2 percent last quarter. So if somebody is pocketing the gains from 9.5 percent increase in productivity, it isn’t the people working on the lines. Yes, they’re happy to have jobs. Yes, it’s nice to see any gain at all after a decade of decline in wages and income. But no, we don’t want to recreate the bubble that popped. We need to make sure these gains are widely shared and that the people doing the work reap their fair share of the benefit.

Private prisons are a cancer. But they fill up because they are there. Companies build them, and people come. No need for pesky voter approved bond financing of public works.

About Eric Lotke

Eric Lotke has cooked in five-star restaurants and flushed every toilet in the Washington D.C. jail. He has filed headline lawsuits and published headline research on crime, prisons, and sex offenses. He was formerly research director at Campaign for America's Future. His latest novel is Making Manna.